n8 A BOOK OF THE RUNNING BROOK: 



" carp-ponds should be drained every spring as 

 early as the weather will permit ... if the 

 ponds are not drained early in the season, the 

 growth of aquatic vegetation will be retarded. 

 . . . The ponds should again be drained in 

 October for the purpose of assorting the carp, 

 removing the young from the stock-ponds to the 

 nursery- ponds, selecting both young and mature 

 fish for marketing purposes, and also to destroy 

 all enemies or other fish found in the ponds, 

 which should be done as well as at the spring 

 draining. Neither the ponds nor the fish should 

 be disturbed at any other season of the year." 

 Captain Peirce does not advocate the planting 

 system of Dubravius, though he also re- 

 commends the use of three ponds, which he 

 utilizes all at the same time for fish. In the 

 " hatching-pond " he places only the finest adult 

 specimens, in the " nursery " the young ones of 

 both sexes indiscriminately; for, as Izaak 

 Walton says, " in a nurse-pond, or feeding-pond 

 in which they will not breed, then no care is to 

 be taken, whether there be most male or female 

 carps," and in the " stock-pond " the fish that 



